Chapter 213

In the early evening, the sycamore trees lining the entrance of the Windsor Manor rustled in the breeze, shedding curled leaves that spiraled down onto the bluestone pavers in a thin carpet of gold.

The sun had sunk to the edge of the distant skyline. One last ribbon of dark amber light filtered through the treetops, gilding the silhouette of the entire courtyard in a warmth that was about to die.

A black sports car slid silently up the front drive and stopped beside the fountain.

The fountain's jets caught the fading light in tiny fragments. A few sycamore leaves drifted on the water's surface, spinning slowly.

Kieran hadn't come home for the last family dinner, and Valencia had pressed him repeatedly since. He had no choice but to return.

Kieran stepped out first, swinging the door shut behind him with a motion that carried the restless irritation he'd been suppressing the entire drive.

He rounded to the passenger side and pulled the door open harder than usual. The force sent a gust of air across the ground, lifting a few dead leaves before dropping them again.

Ondine emerged from the passenger seat with her shoulders drawn in, both hands clutching his sleeve like it was her last lifeline.

Her fingers trembled from the force of her grip, her knuckles an unnatural bluish-white. She looked like a small animal caught in a downpour and then lifted by the scruff — barely able to stand on her own.

She raised her head and glanced at the familiar front entrance. Bluestone steps. Black iron door knockers. Two unlit lanterns flanking the threshold.

She'd grown up here. Jumped rope on these steps. Waited under the portico for Kieran to come home from school. Flown kites with Caspian in the garden.

But now this door felt like a courtroom.

She instinctively shrank another half-step behind Kieran, letting his body shield her completely.

"Kieran," her voice was hoarse and barely there, thick with tears, every syllable scraped raw from her throat, "I'm scared... I know I was wrong. I never should have been so stupid—"

Her tears welled up again right on cue, a single drop sliding from the corner of her eye and landing on the dark fabric of Kieran's cuff.

Kieran glanced down at her and pulled her further behind him. "Don't be scared. I'm here. No one's throwing you out today."

They had barely set foot on the portico steps when they saw someone standing beneath the old sycamore tree in the courtyard.

Caspian wore a charcoal overcoat, the collar open just enough to reveal the white shirt underneath.

His hands hung at his sides, sleeves rolled slightly to expose lean wrists.

It was unclear how long he'd been standing beneath that tree. Two dead leaves had settled on his shoulders; one still clung to the edge of his collar, swaying in the breeze. He hadn't bothered to brush them off.

Several cigarette butts were scattered across the bluestone at his feet. Some had already been blown into the grass by the wind.

His gaze cut through the dusk and landed on Ondine behind Kieran — cool, flat, utterly still. Not a ripple in those eyes.

He looked like a man reviewing a math problem he'd already verified a hundred times. The answer had long been etched in stone. Today was simply the day he read the number after the equals sign out loud.

Kieran saw that expression and felt the anger he'd been suppressing all day flare again.

He'd been at the racetrack. He'd watched reporters swarm Ondine until there was no air left, cameras shoved in her face demanding, "Did you drug your sister's tea?" He'd watched her shield her face with one hand, bent at the waist, squeezing through the crowd in humiliating retreat.

She had knelt in his arms and cried all night, saying she'd been used, saying she'd just had a moment of weakness.

And now Caspian was looking at her like this. Like she was garbage. Like she wasn't even worth his anger.

Kieran stepped forward, placing himself squarely between them, spine straight, voice rising half a pitch. "Caspian, I'm bringing Ondi home.

She just had a lapse in judgment. Quinn manipulated her. She was locked up in that hillside villa for God knows how long, publicly humiliated at the welcome banquet — hasn't she suffered enough?"

"Twenty years of growing up together. She's called you her big brother for twenty years. Knitted you scarves every holiday. Made you homemade pasta on your birthday. Does all of that mean nothing to you?"

Ondine buried her head lower, shoulders trembling softly. Through the curtain of her hair, she stole a glance at Wesley and Valencia inside.

Valencia had already emerged from the living room at some point and stood at the top of the steps, one hand gripping the stone railing, her lips pressed into a thin line.

She wore a navy cardigan, a pearl brooch pinned at the collar, her hair swept back immaculately. But beneath her eyes were two shadows that no amount of concealer could hide — the marks of sleepless nights stretching back days.

She looked at Ondine, and what flashed through her mind wasn't a little girl twirling in a princess dress on the lawn, or a small daughter curled in her arms cooing, "Mommy's the best."

It was the photo that lit up the banquet screen — Ondine and Gavin tangled together, broadcast to every notable family in the city.

It was the drugged tea in the racetrack lounge. Her biological daughter had nearly been destroyed.

One incident after another, spinning past her eyes like a carousel of horrors.

Her lips moved as though she wanted to speak, but in the end she only closed her eyes and turned her face away, fingers gripping the edge of her shawl until her knuckles went white.

Wesley stood beside her, one arm around her shoulders, the other hand hanging at his side, watching the confrontation below in silence.

"Do you even know what she's done?" Caspian spoke. His voice wasn't loud. His pace wasn't fast. But every word landed with absolute certainty.

He pulled a neatly folded sheet of paper from his pocket and opened it. On it was a list he'd written by hand — every item annotated with dates, locations, and evidence sources in full detail. He took two steps forward, stopped in front of Kieran, and read each entry in a voice so calm it was nearly weightless.

"Before the welcome banquet, she contacted Gavin. Met him at Lunar Brew and paid him to book a hotel room and hide a micro-camera inside.

She arranged for Xiomara to provoke Seraphine at the banquet while she stood off to the side sipping champagne and watching. She drugged Gavin, intending for him and Seraphine to end up together in that hotel room, then planned to project the photos onto the banquet screen."

"That photo did appear on the screen — but the woman in it wasn't Seraphine. It was her. All the video footage, transfer records, and surveillance screenshots have been recovered. Gavin's signed confession is on file."

The expression on Kieran's face shifted from anger to confusion, then from confusion to a rigid blankness — the look of a man who didn't dare hear what came next.

His mouth opened as if to speak, but Caspian gave him no room.

"Yesterday. The racetrack. She teamed up with Quinn, bribed a logistics worker, and slipped drugs into Seraphine's tea."